John Edwards Scandal: Photos Shift the Scandal to MSM Coverage

Will Media cover it now?

"You can bring a MSM reporter to the story, but you can't make him report it."--DBKP's LBG

Radar contacts Hairstylist

The Enquirer gives the MSM a BIG smoking gun

August 6 turned out to be Christmas for many mainstream media outlets across America, as the National Enquirer gave them not one, but a whole collection of smoking guns. [THE PHOTOS EVERYONE'S BEEN WAITING FOR!]

The Enquirer released the long-awaited John Edwards scandal photos. The traditional press now has the "proof" that they have been using as a reason not to report the story to their readers.

The Enquirer gave the MSM a smoking gun over two weeks ago: Edwards running from reporters as he was leaving the Beverly Hilton.

"Not big enough," said some, while others thought it didn't even look like a gun: it was only an Enquirer toy gun.

But will many MSM outlets report it even now?

The New York Times' quandary now--outside of stock that's dropped to half its value a year ago--is: How do you hide a howitzer from your readers, many whom already knew about it by searching the Internet?

THE REAL SCANDAL

The real scandal wasn't that Edwards fathered a baby while married to a cancer-stricken wife. It may not even have been the "elaborate cover up", as the Enquirer labels it. It was the monolithic refusal of the American mainstream press to even investigate the facts of the story, which were, with the application of a little legwork, easy enough for them to investigate.

After Edwards was caught by the Enquirer's reporters at the Beverly Hilton at 2:40 in the morning July 22, the reason for not reporting was "there's no confirmation". When FoxNews confirmed the run-in by interviewing one of the hotel security guards involved, the reason shifted to, "We want to see pictures".

Two weeks ago, Enquirer Editor-in-Chief, David Perel told us, "The onus is on them to do some reporting."

But outside of a few dailies and a few mentions at FoxNews, there was none. Customers of CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, the New York Times, Time, Newsweek and the LA Times --where LAT's Blogs Editor, Tony Pearce, infamously and specifically ordered his reporters not to blog on the topic--are still in the dark.

We weren't the only ones in the blogosphere that takes deserved shots at the Mainstream Media for it lack of Edwards coverage.

Hooray! The National Enquirer has published photos of former political person John Edwards with a baby. The baby is almost certainly made up in part of DNA he left in a woman named Rielle Hunter, a former Edwards staffer who now spends her time cashing checks and hiding in hotels and denying everything to the media (until Good Morning America finally books her!). So now would be a perfect time for, like, established print media to cover this story, right? Anyone? Ha, no, they are all too embarrassed. Once again, it's up to the internet!

Radar did some legwork by contacting the Chapel Hill hairstylist of Andrew Young's wife, Cheri, and concluded: "And there you have it: definitive proof of the affair! Get to it, mainstream media!"

With a little bit of legwork, we established that Young gets her hair done at Mina's in Chapel Hill. We tried repeatedly to get Young's stylist on the phone, but were told that she wasn't authorized to speak to the press, and that we'd have to go through the owner, Louann. Louann seemed quite amused when we briefly explained why we wanted to talk to the stylist four days ago (all we said was that Cheri Young had been in the news, and that we wanted to talk to her for a few minutes); she said that she'd ask the stylist if she felt comfortable talking and get back to us, but that it didn't seem like it would be a problem.

When she got back to us today, however, her tone was a little different: "She knows nothing, they've never had a conversation about that," she said politely but firmly. When we asked what "that" referred to, Louann said, "That's all I will really say about this."

Thus, Louann was asked one more time about the scandal than John Edwards was from November 2007 through July 23, 2008.